


let the memories be good (for those who stay)

by Mellaithwen



Series: there's a rhythm and rush these days [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Civil War Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), The boys get the happy ending they deserve (eventually)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:01:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14392860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: Post-Civil WarFrom Siberia, to Wakanda, to the Cryo-Chamber (and back).Stumbling through the snow, Steve and Bucky’s pace is not dissimilar to anyone else their age. Both nearing on one-hundred years old, their bodies are battered and they’ll be lucky if they even make it to the quinjet before nightfall...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ......Oh hey look it's that thing I started writing a ridiculously long time ago.... *cough*
> 
> The title is from Mumford and Sons.
> 
> A quick note on the timeline, because the MCU continuity is getting to be confusing AF.... the majority of this was written before Black Panther came out. By way of a fix, we'll pretend that T'Challa's flight back to Wakanda at the beginning of the film ( _"I never freeze"_ ) is not the first-return, but more of his first- _official_ return, since anything prior to that may have been incognito (....I just need it to happen a few days later to work...)
> 
> so without further ado...

*

 

 

The shield falls to the ground with a resounding  _clang._

 

It  _sounds_ so much heavier than it is—just like it  _feels_ so much heavier than it is, as if it’s imbued with the very weight of a nation’s expectations, and standards too impossible to achieve.

 

The noise of the vibranium as it slams into the concrete is swift—finite, and contained, and the dead silence that follows is akin to a quiet void.

 

Like the closing of a door, it does not echo—it simply  _is_.

 

It sounds  _wrong_ , but Captain America is too exhausted to care.

  
  


*****  
  


Limping away from the alcove, Steve and Bucky’s pace is not dissimilar to anyone else their age. Both nearing on one-hundred years old, their bodies are battered and they’ll be lucky if they even make it to the quinjet before nightfall.

“You left your shield behind,” Bucky says, breaking the silence and almost slurring as he lets Steve half-drag him along through the winter winds. Steve, in turn, is shivering a little as they go, and clearly trying to downplay his own injuries, as usual.  _C’mere, we gotta ice that shiner before it gets any worse_ , Bucky thinks he might have said once.

 

“Don’t need it,” Steve all but grunts in response, and Bucky can’t help but think of the burning helicarrier, and the last time Steve let the shield go for his best friend’s sake—  _I’m not gonna fight you, you’re my friend_. His heart skips a beat as he struggles to swallow past the lump in his throat. This is significant. He  _knows_ this is significant, and he can feel the enormity of the gesture deep in his bones, but Bucky doesn’t know how to put it into words. The earth’s unravelling beneath his feet. There’s a deep ache in his chest, and when he draws in a painful breath he can almost feel something  _catch_ between his ribs.

 

“We always did okay without it.” Steve adds quietly, referring to a time  _before_ , when their fists were all that they had—were all that they  _needed_. When brawling in back alleys was the closest either of them ever got to any kind of warfare. When the most guilt they felt was the catholic kind, and really that just came as standard.

 

They shuffle past the old cryostasis pods of the now-dead soldiers, and all Bucky can do is stare. His vision’s a little spotty now, but he can clearly see the cracked glass from Zemo’s execution-style killings. The bullet holes that rendered each of the occupied chambers useless.

 

Bucky wonders if the last pod—his own—is still there in working order, or if it was decommissioned when it was clear that the Soldier was not expected to return from his final mission. Did that make him obsolete? Or just the last remaining piece on the board? A remnant of history, best forgotten, a casualty of a political thaw.

 

Bucky can’t help but wonder about what will happen to their bodies. These other Winter Soldiers. He wishes he could have done more. He wishes he could have done more  _then_. For all intents and purposes they were his enemy. They would beat him repeatedly for the sake of passing a test and while their victory was rewarded, Bucky’s failure was not.

 

 _Good work_ , Karpov would say to the others, while Bucky fought to breathe with broken ribs.  _Admirable,_ the colonel would commend, happy to see the extent of their bloodthirsty violence.

 

Bucky can barely differentiate between centuries of punishments, but somehow he knows that it was always worse under Karpov’s rule.

 

Despite all of this, Bucky still feels  _something_ at the deaths of the others. The ones who survived the serum that Bucky killed Howard and Maria Stark to retrieve.  _Sanction and extract. No witnesses._

 

If he closes his eyes, he can still hear Howard whisper  _“Sergeant Barnes,_ ” like it’s a dirty secret, not to be said out loud.  The Soldier hadn’t known the significance of that name at the time, but now that Bucky’s swiss cheese memories have started to return, it’s the kind of thing that leaves a bitter taste in his mouth...

 

They finally make it to the entrance of the silo, and Steve works to pry the door open wide enough to allow them to slip through arm in arm instead of single file. He makes it so that Bucky can lean his back against the wall, pushing away the nausea that his newfound equilibrium—or rather, lack thereof—seems determined to force upon him.

 

He casts one last look at the dead soldiers still sat in their chairs.

 

This base; their tomb.

 

 _At least it was painless_ , he thinks, as he tries to ignore his own injuries, and the rippling torment of his left side. His body is shaking at the strain of staying upright and every step he takes sends shooting pains up and down and along his collarbone. He thinks he can feel something moving—broken shards of metal twisting along the crevice of his shoulder, as though Stark’s last repulsor blast has shifted everything to one side. The possibility of foreign matter floating underneath the surface of his skin leaves Bucky shuddering. It’s yet another reminder that his body is not quite his own.

 

“Bucky?” Steve says softly, calling his attention away from his pain, and the corpses, slumped in their frozen coffins. “You ready?”

 

No. Yes.  _Maybe_.

 

He nods, and Steve steps forward to sling his right arm over his shoulder, cautious of his best friend’s injuries. The mess of Bucky’s destroyed arm is still sparking—little beads of light flickering like fireflies in the in the dark of the cold compound.

 

To Bucky, the singed wires feel more like exposed nerves with the outdated neural pathways screaming  _painpainpain_ and making his vision swim with every step he takes. He’s sick with it, his head spinning, his body shaking. He grits his teeth as another wave of agony washes over him, and Steve—sensing his discomfort, says; “Nearly there, Buck, we’re nearly there.”

 

Nearly can’t come soon enough.

  


*****    


 

When the doors to the outside finally grind open with an age old screeching sound, Steve tries to brace himself against the harsh cold gale that follows, but it’s no use. The weather is much worse than before, and he can barely see a thing through the white sheet of snow that’s falling in front of his face. The small flurries from earlier are gone, replaced by a heavy blizzard that’s already made the ground a bleached stark white. The soft crunch of their boots on the ice is muffled, but the wind is howling, and bringing with it an even stronger gust.

 

Steve can feel the cold seeping down into his bones, making his joints ache, and he can’t tell if the whistling in his ears is a result of the weather or the concussion he most certainly has. He can taste blood on his lips, and smell smoke in the air.  

 

The snow is falling almost horizontally, and it’s creating huge drifts up against any surface that it comes across. The white expanse is constantly shifting, and it reminds Steve of the sand-dunes at Far Rockaway after a heavy storm.

 

_God, he hasn’t been to the beach in forever..._

 

Steve shifts Bucky’s weight on his shoulder, and seventy years have nothing on him, as he drags Bucky’s body through the frozen tundra. Their footprints disappear behind them. The tiny red droplets that they’re leaving in their wake are soon gone without a trace—lost to the cold—and whilst Tony has made no move to follow them, Steve can’t help but feel the hair’s on the back of his neck stand on end. Zemo could still be out here somewhere, and god knows he wouldn’t hesitate to use Bucky’s weakened state against Steve to hurt him even more.

 

They’re not safe here, they have to get out,  _get away_.

 

An ominous sense of anxiety starts to claw at Steve’s throat, and he’s been on edge for what feels like forever, but he can’t give in to the dread—  _focus, Rogers, focus_.

 

“Doing okay?” Steve asks, because Bucky is entirely too quiet by his side, and they can’t afford to stop, not until they’ve made it to the jet. Not until they’ve put some distance between them and this hellish place they’ve found themselves in.

 

Bucky doesn’t answer straight away, as if he doesn’t quite know  _how_.

 

“N-n-no way the freezer truck was as cold as this.” Bucky says finally while his teeth chatter—because serum or not they’ve just had a supreme beat down and now they’re dragging their bodies through a Siberian  _blizzard_.

 

“You gave me your scarf.” Steve remembers quietly, half-caught in the memory they’d briefly discussed earlier.

 

“Yeah, and you c-complained that it was itchy,” Bucky responds with a smile that shows off his cracked lips and bloody teeth, “you ungrateful little s-shit.”

 

Steve barks out a sudden laugh that makes both of them groan in pain at the jostling it causes. He doesn’t think about the shield, or leaving it behind and what all of that means. He doesn’t need to. Bucky is his priority right now, and that’s enough.

  
  
  
*

 

They stumble forwards, and Bucky knows he’s little more than a dead weight at this point , being dragged through the snow, with his left arm destroyed and his head still spinning from blood loss. He can feel his own body slipping—listing to one side, even as Steve shifts to get a better hold of him; to keep him from falling. They’re leaning against one another, but Bucky’s arm is  _gone,_ and there’s enough blood in the back of his throat to make him gag for days.

 

A sickening feeling of deja vu washes over him and has him choking on the bile in his throat, as he lurches away from Steve’s hold all of a sudden. He hears a voice, and for a second, it’s not Steve calling out to him at all, but a—

 

 _Russian guard is dragging him against his will—still dripping from the hurried defrost—still shivering from the ice. His feet scramble to find purchase but the ground is slippery an_ _d wet and he hasn’t moved in years, he thinks he might have forgotten how, and he doesn’t want the chair, and he doesn’t want the words—longing, rusted, seven—seven—seventeen, no, not aga—daybreak, fur—stop—nace, nine, benign, home—home, I want to go home—coming, one, freight car. Where am I? Where am I? What’s..._

 

_Soldat? James? Can I call you James? My name is—_

 

“—Bucky? Buck! Woah, hey, easy, Bucky—”

 

He can hear a bone-saw in the distance and a snivelling voice that makes his blood run cold telling him exactly what he will do, what he will become.  _The new face of Hydra_.

 

He falls to his knees with a thud and retches on the ground. His right arm shakes at the effort of holding his body aloft, but when he’s done he can see Steve’s hands hovering close by, ready to catch him—kneeling beside him in the cold. Snowflakes fall around them, catching on their clothes, before they melt into nothingness as if they were never there at all, and Bucky has to bite his lip to stop himself from repeating his name, rank and serial number as if it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

 

He ignores the cruel voice in his head that says none of this is real, and that Steve’s not even there. That the cold isn’t a blizzard in Siberia at all, but the confines of the cryochamber as he’s about to go under—kept in a perpetually dying state, because this isn’t living, and so it must be something else.

 

He can smell exhaust fumes in the air, and he has a sudden vivid recollection of Tony’s face as he had watched his parents die. Worse still, Bucky remembers killing them in the first place.

 

Maria’s whimpering didn’t last long. He saw to that.

 

Maybe going back under isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe, he thinks, it’s the least that he deserves.

 

“Buck?” Steve asks— _because_   _he’s real, because he’s here_ —jolting Bucky out of his sombre thoughts and back to the present, having already slipped his right arm over his shoulder to hoist his best friend upright.

 

Bucky looks up, even though it hurts to do so. He half expects to see the snow stained red, and a bloody stump twitching at his side, but instead he sees Steve’s blue eyes, creased in concern.

 

The ghosts slink back into the shadows, and Bucky lets the howling wind chase the voices away.  He goes to give Steve a brisk nod, his chest still heaving from exertion, but as soon as they take a step forward together, the ringing in Bucky’s ears reaches a fever pitch—so much so that he thinks his head might explode. The dark haze in the corner of his eyes sweeps towards him. It billows close as it gathers speed until his whole body is screaming out in pain, and suddenly the ground is rushing up to meet him.  

As he falls, Bucky sees something dart forward on his left flank.  _More ghosts?_ He wonders, and flinches when the new figure’s hands reach out to stop him from falling—shouldering his weight along with Rogers. Bucky instantly feels the need to try and defend himself again, if only to spare any further recriminations on Steve.

 

 _“I d’dn’t kill…”_ he tries to say, but his words are slurring together, and he hates to leave Steve alone in a fight but his eyes are rolling into the back of his head, and all he can do is slump in their arms, in the snow.

 

Their last encounter didn’t end so well, but Bucky’s grateful that at least this time, the Black Panther’s claws are sheathed.

 

 

*  


 

“Your highness,” Steve greets the newcomer warily as he tries to keep a hold of Bucky’s limp form in his arms — only slightly surprised to see that they were followed after all, and by the Black Panther of Wakanda no less.

 

For a second he wonders if there are any more superheroes hiding in the snow, before he remembers that Sam and Clint and Wanda and Scott are god knows where, and it's all his fault.

 

He thinks of Tony and his rage, and the brutal fight that left them this way.  _Did you know?_ He thinks of him sitting, slumped against the wall, weighed down by his armour.  _He killed my mom._  He thinks of him dragging himself into an upright position, and spitting blood onto the floor.

 

He can still hear the sound of his own fists pummeling Iron Man’s mask in the back of his mind, and he shudders.

“Your friend is gravely wounded,” T’Challa says, bypassing any kind of greeting, as he keeps a firm grip around Barnes’ midsection, and gestures to his injuries with what Steve thinks might be concern. “You both are,” he continues, as he shifts his gaze away from Bucky to Steve.

 

What must they look like to the new King? With their uniforms scorched and stained and ripped and torn. With their skin bruised and covered in blood and their bodies swaying in the cold, cold breeze. Two super-soldiers, at the end of their rope.

 

“Tony…” Steve says, sucking in a breath of cold air, and feeding ice into his lungs. “  _Stark_ , he’s still—he’s still in the compound—and Zemo—he—I don’t know where he is, but he was the one who—”

 

“Captain,” says T’Challa, his voice clipped and strong despite the howling winds and the mask over his face. “The man responsible for my father’s death has been detained.”

 

 _Oh_.

 

Steve doesn’t trust his own instincts when it comes to differentiating between friend or foe, but he can’t help but notice that the King of Wakanda is not attacking them, nor is he leaving them to perish in the snow.  In fact, everything about the Panther’s demeanour has changed, as though he has discovered a newfound clarity out here in the Siberian snow. He must have overhead Zemo’s confession in the compound, absolving Bucky of that particular crime, at least.

 

Steve nods, a little dumbfounded at the turn of events and almost certainly concussed. He swallows the lump in his throat and adjusts his hold of his best friend’s weight, until his hand is resting over Bucky’s chest and Bucky’s head is slumped against Steve’s shoulder. He can feel his heartbeat beneath his fingertips, too fast and all at once too slow—irregular, offbeat and out-of-sync.

 

“Your transport is not far.” T’Challa says, bringing Steve back to the present as he hoists Bucky’s body upright, and gently pulls him from Steve’s hold. Bearing the brunt of Bucky’s dead weight with ease, and carrying him in his arms as though he weighed no more than a child, the King takes Bucky in the direction of the parked quinjet while Steve follows suit. His head is pounding, but he can’t afford to miss a step, and he matches each of T’Challa’s strides until they finally make it to the jet, and he all but staggers to his knees inside.

 

T’Challa tilts his head in his direction as he gently lays Bucky down onto the ground beside him.

 

“Rest,” the Black Panther says, as he makes to leave, heading back into the snow. “I will return.” He promises, but Steve’s only response is to slide backwards until he’s sitting on his haunches, leaning to one side as he presses himself closer to his best friend, curling around his body like a shield.

 

A very tired, battered, and emotionally exhausted shield.

 

The small movement, and the distinct change of weather is enough to wake Bucky from his unintended slumber, and he blinks blearily at finding himself indoors once more. There’s a glazed look in his eyes, and he smacks his dry lips together as if to speak, but lets out a long measured breath instead. Now that they’re out of the blizzard, his hair is starting to curl at its ends, and Steve can’t help but brush some of it out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. His fingers linger there for a second, lost in the quiet moment, just staring.

 

Blood from Bucky’s nose and mouth have left thick smears of red across and down the side of his face, and Steve hadn't noticed before but there's a large red stain at the base of Bucky's skull that’s disappearing into the neck of his jacket—a blood trail from a deep cut, hidden in his hairline.

 

But he’s breathing. He’s alive. He’s  _here_ and for the moment at least, he’s safe.

 

He goes to move in search of the first aid kit, well-stocked in one of the bench drawers, but suddenly Bucky’s right hand is clasped around his wrist, and he’s trying—but failing—to sit upright.

 

“I’m right here, Buck,” Steve rasps in response, as he leans down to press their foreheads together, as the cold fog of their breaths hang listlessly in the still cold air.  “I’m right here.”

 

Slumped back, and clearly on his way to passing out once more, Bucky lets go of Steve’s wrist, and gently pokes at his chest instead as if to prove that yes, Steve is indeed right-there.

 

For a second all Steve can think about is Dr. Erskine doing the exact same thing not so long ago.  _A good man_ , Erskine had meant then, but now Bucky's fingers are trailing along the scorch mark left behind from Tony's repulsor blast, right in the heart of the star on his chest, and Steve feels like anything  _but_ ‘a good man’.

 

The weight of his past presses down upon him like an albatross around his neck.  _That shield doesn’t belong to you,_ Tony had said as his parting shot.  _You don’t deserve it, my father made that shield,_ and Steve can’t dispute the accusation that he is unworthy any more than he can dispute Howard’s own involvement in his own continued existence.

 

Steve still remembers the way he would look at him as though he were too good to be true, and he half-expected Captain America to be a figment of his own overactive imagination.   


He remembers Howard fondly. He was a  _friend_. He remembers the pride he had in his work, the arched brow he would throw in Peggy’s direction, and the sly smirk he seemed to reserve for everybody else.

  
He remembers his thick New York accent—and how strange it was to hear how it had changed in the archived footage from later years. How refined he sounded in the Stark Industries propaganda reels he’d seen from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s...

 

_Did you know?_

 

_Did I?_

 

“Steve?” Bucky calls out, and Steve looks down to see that his whole body has grown tense all of a sudden. T’Challa has returned, and his figure is momentarily silhouetted against the white expanse beyond the jet before the doors close, and he makes his way past them to the cockpit, giving them a small nod as he goes by.

 

Bucky burrows closer in his arms. “What…?” He stops. He breathes. He starts again. “Where are we going?” He settles on instead, with his eyes wide—clearly concerned over the possibility of recapture looming over them.  _Is this it? Are they done?_

 

Steve looks up to where T’Challa has now sat down in the pilot’s seat, and watches as the Panther deftly guides the jet up and out through the clouds of snow despite the poor visibility and dangerous weather conditions.

 

“Uh, Wakanda, I think.” Steve supposes, somehow acutely aware that the new King has taken them under his wing.

 

If Bucky hears Steve’s response he doesn’t comment—instead, his eyes seem to zero in on the side of Steve’s face, and the trail of blood that’s drying there. He reaches up to touch—his balance still precarious even now, as he lies on his side. He manages to undo the strap at Steve's chin, and when he falters—unable to gain the proper purchase to lift Steve's helmet off of his head one handed—Steve helps. He catches Bucky’s armwhere it hovers in mid-air—still reaching—and he leans in close, gently pressing his lips to Bucky’s bloody knuckles where the skin has torn and split.

 

He hears something catch in Bucky’s throat—a small intake of breath, stuttering just so—as though any display of tenderness is still so strange and foreign to him, that he can scarcely believe it’s real. He keeps his hand on Steve's cheek, letting Steve’s head rest there, his whole jaw cradled in Bucky’s palm.

 

Steve can see his own guilt echoed in Bucky’s blue eyes, and the blood that’s still caked on his face has started to dry. He can’t help but stare at the mess of mangled metal and torn wires that was once a sophisticated prosthetic at Bucky’s side, and he crumbles. He moves to tilt his head so that in the close proximity their noses can touch, brushing up against each other’s marred skin. Steve’s intimate gesture is cautious at first—but it gathers momentum when he meets no resistance.

 

Their lips are chapped from the cold and they're both left with a coppery aftertaste as they pull away but this chaste kiss has been a long time coming and neither of them have the energy to think that it’s anything less than perfect. Bucky’s breathing slowly starts to even out as exhaustion looms over them both, while Steve leans into the embrace greedily and thinks, they can have this now.  _Finally._

 

Really, he should’ve known better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to say hello on [tumblr](http://mellaithwen.tumblr.com/)!


	2. Chapter 2

*

 

 

In his dreams Bucky is chasing a car on the back of a motorcycle down a dark, dark road. It’s raining, and the trees on either side loom over him. Branches reach out like fingers pulling at his clothes but still he drives onwards. His headlight is the only thing illuminating the wet tarmac, until finally he sees a the brake lights of a cadillac up ahead.

 

His target is in his sights. _Sanction and extract. No witnesses._

 

The bike’s engine thrums between his thighs as he revs to go faster, bracing himself as he drives up alongside and smacks his metal fist into the glass of the passenger side door. The car loses control, swerving to the left, and he watches, detached, as the vehicle slams to a stop; its front end buckling effortlessly as it crashes against the immovable tree.

 

Smoke rises from out of the crumpled hood as the engine catches fire. Something shuffles in the dark. A cricket chirps.

 

Time slows.

 

He could keep driving.

 

The road is long, and there’s enough gas in the tank to give him a head start. Better yet, he could crash the bike. He knows the precise angle required to achieve maximum injury, critical even for him. He heals fast, but he is not invincible. He can be stopped.

 

He must be stopped.

 

_….someone….stop..._

 

But his hands do not belong to him, and he cannot control the bike’s trajectory any more than he can escape this prison of hydra’s making. Instead, he parks the bike, secures the payload out of the trunk, and drags the driver out of the car. Still conscious, the man gives him a name, an identity that the Soldier cannot yet recognise as his own. So instead, he slams his fist into the man’s face, once, twice for good measure. He ignores the sensation of bones breaking beneath his fingertips, and positions the dead man back inside of his car slumped over the wheel. The passenger whispers her husband’s name as she struggles, and her dying breath leaves a trail of goosebumps all along the back of the Soldier’s right hand as he strangles her.

 

“Mom?”

 

He turns around to see the figure of a young boy standing in the road.

 

_This is new._

 

The Soldier cannot see his face, but seconds later, that same boy is all at once a man and he’s covered head to toe in red and gold armour.

 

He surges forwards, moving inhumanely fast and suddenly his arm is around the Soldier’s neck. _Do you even remember them?_ He’s screaming, spitting, as he gestures wildly to the growing numbers of corpses at their feet; bodies old and decayed, piled on top of one another in a mass grave of his own making.

 

_I remember..._

 

The Soldier’s tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth as he struggles to breath, while his attacker points to the broken shield on the floor, with its endless scattered shards painted red, white and blue.

 

_Ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?_

 

 _No, I’m following_ —

 

 _Who the hell is_ —

 

 _Your mother’s name was_ —

 

 _You used to_ —

 

Steve’s lying at his feet, but he isn’t moving, and his eyes are open but glazed over in death. There’s a trail of blood dripping from out of the side of his mouth, and there’s a great big red stain on the front of his abdomen where a bullet from the Soldiers gun has perforated his insides.

 

“Are you worth it?” Tony asks him.

 

“No.” Bucky replies as he lets Stark crush his larynx.

 

He wakes up a second later in a cold sweat, still gasping, as his body heaves up off of the bed that he’s lying on. His eyes dart around the room; but he sees only strangers. A man and two women in white coats and scrubs are staring down at him. There’s a machine beeping overhead and there’s something in his nose—thin nodules feeding him oxygen—and he pulls at the tubing, yanking it away from his face, ignoring the doctors calling his name, calling for help. There’s an IV in the back of his right hand, and he pulls that out too. It stings, and it leaves a thin trail of red spots splattered along the crisp white bed sheets.

 

There’s a litany of questions rushing around his head that he’s desperate to voice, but his mouth feels fuzzy, like it’s filled with cotton, like he’s been drugged, or muzzled. _Oh god. What’s happening? Steve? Where’s Steve? Not again, not again, not_ —

 

And suddenly out of the din comes a hand with slender fingers reaching out towards him. Threads of red light, like cobwebbed silk, weave their way through the air, until it’s all that he can see—until his eyes are bright with it, and the shaking of his whole body starts to fade. His fear and panic take a back seat, and all at once, as if by magic, he can hear the sea.

 

Rushing waves lap at the shore, and he can taste salt in the air. He can feel soft lips brush up against the side of his neck while strong arms wrap around his middle from behind. Something twisted and terrifying in the pit of Bucky’s stomach finally starts to uncoil.

 

“Steve,” he says, breathless and wanting, as he finally finds his voice.  
  
_What do you say we get out of here?_ Steve says, as they drop to their knees in the sand, lying back until they’re both staring up at the blazing blue sky with the sun’s heat prickling at their bare skin. _We could go for a swim? Or we can go home?_ _I'll take you anywhere you wanna go_.

 

“How about the boardwalk?” Bucky suggests, licking his dry lips as the hospital room fades away completely, and the vision of the hot summers-day in his mind’s eye gets brighter and brighter still. He remembers laughing at the seagulls attacking tourists for their food, and suddenly he’s famished.  “We can grab a couple hot-dogs.”

 

_That sounds perfect, Buck. Like a dream._

 

It sure does, Bucky thinks. It sure does.

  


*****

  
  


“What happened?” Steve asks as he runs into the room where Bucky had been out cold since their arrival in Wakanda.  Sam follows closely after having both been bidding Clint and Scott farewell when a small crowd of medical personnel had insisted that they follow them back to the med-bay, _asap_.

 

The trip to the African nation had passed by in a blur, and Bucky had been unconscious for the whole journey, not even waking up during the medical ministrations used to treat his battered body when they had first arrived. The internal bleeding, the removal of the shrapnel of his own prosthetic—throughout it all, Bucky had slept. And when T’Challa’s best and brightest had found the exact location of the Raft prison and there was still no sign of Bucky waking up any time soon, Steve had taken his chance to rescue the rest of his team.

 

The doctors had assured him that there was nothing to be concerned about, and that Bucky’s body was just in desperate need of rest. T’Challa’s own sister had theorised that the triggering process alone would have left his body exhausted, let alone the two battles that followed. Steve had managed to grab some shut-eye on the jet on the way to Siberia but it was becoming increasingly unlikely that Bucky’s own rolled-eyed response of ‘ _yes mom, I got some sleep_ ’ had any semblance of truth in it. The only nap Steve had actually seen Bucky take had lasted all of three minutes in the back of a cramped VW in Germany, before he’d woken up from his nightmare with a gasp.

 

He sure as hell hasn’t had anything since, and Steve highly doubts being on the run through eastern Europe allowed for much rest either.

 

And now all he can see is Bucky—still out of it—fighting the nasal cannula and the IV’s like they’re restraints holding him down, while the very few doctors and nurses that T’Challa has cleared to even be in the room are floundering to calm him down. Bucky’s wrist is tangled up in all of the wires he’s connected to, and his body is obviously still weak from blood loss, but just when Steve takes a step forward to help, Bucky’s struggling starts to ease off.

 

Suddenly aware of a figure at his back, Steve turns to see Wanda stood in the doorway. She’s leaning against the frame in an effort to make herself seem as small as possible, clothed in a stark white t-shirt and sweatpants that seem to be three sizes too big for her petite frame.

 

Her hand is outstretched in Bucky’s direction, fingers curled in thin air as she guides the elongated red wisps of energy towards Bucky like she’s conducting a symphony.

 

The bags under her eyes are painfully pronounced, and she’s so pale that her skin looks almost translucent, as if it's been spread too thinly over her fragile bones. Only hours ago she was freed from that horrific collar and those cruel restraints, and Steve can’t help but think this is too much, too soon.

 

“Wanda—” He starts to say in concern, but he’s cut off by Bucky’s own quiet voice.

 

_“Steve.”_

 

“I’m here, Buck.” Steve replies, turning back and stepping forward towards the bed, but it’s painfully obvious from the glazed look in his eyes, that Bucky’s not _actually_ talking to him.

 

“How ‘bout the boardwalk?” He says dreamily, mumbling as if in conversation with someone else, while his body sags back onto the gurney, “...grab a...couple hot..d…”

 

Bucky’s body slumps down completely before he can finish, and his fist uncurls at his side. His vice-like grip on the sheets is released, and Steve takes his limp hand in his instead as he grabs a square of gauze from a nearby tray, and presses gently on the torn skin from where the IV had been, until a nurse can prepare another.

 

Behind him, he hears Sam call Wanda’s name, but when he turns around she’s already stumbling towards the door, shrugging away Sam’s attempts to give her comfort, and hurrying out of the room before anyone can say a word.

 

Steve moves to stand, but Sam shakes his head.

 

“I’ll go,” he says knowingly. “Besides,” he adds with a smirk in an attempt to lighten the mood as he leaves,  “I need to find out if someone around here has the Trouble Man soundtrack—Marvin does wonders for you unconscious super-soldiers.”

  
  


*****

  
  


The first indication Steve has that Bucky’s waking up is the twitching of his fingers on his right hand. A tiny jerk of a movement that seems to spread through Bucky’s whole body until finally his eyes are half-open, and blinking blearily despite the purposely dimmed lights of the medical suite in T’Challa’s palace that they’ve been graciously given refuge to stay in.

 

“Hey, how do you feel?”

 

“I had a nice dream,” he says simply as he lets out a yawn, and Steve reaches out to brush the hair from out of his eyes.

 

“You have Wanda to thank for that.”

 

Bucky frowns. “Wanda? She’s here?” He asks, moving to sit up and catch up on what he’s missed, but Steve gently pushes him back down again.

 

“She’s here, Sam too. And Clint and Scott are already on their way to a couple of safehouses to meet up with their families.”

 

“What? How?”

 

“T’Challa offered to give me a ride.”

 

To the most impenetrable prison on earth, he doesn’t add.

 

“You just...waltzed right in, didn’t you?” Bucky asks, almost rhetorically, but his incredulous wonder is swiftly interrupted by a great big yawn as Bucky, clearly still exhausted by the day and a half’s events, continues to call Steve an idiot. “But,” he concedes eventually, “I’m glad you got your friends out safe.”

 

“Yeah, me too.”  
  
  


*

  


When Steve goes off in search of something the pair of them can eat, Bucky finds his thoughts straying to the last few days.

 

When he had first caught a glance of the vendor across the street watching him, he’d felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The sirens were one thing, but a stranger’s terror at seeing just his face was enough to bring the old fear of being caught to the forefront of his mind.

 

He’d known instinctively that the security footage wasn’t him, regardless of the facial similarities, and yet...

 

For a second—in those desperate moments before he hightailed it in the opposite direction of his apartment, zig-zagging around the city before doubling back and making sure he wasn’t being followed—he’d questioned himself. Could he have done it? And if so, was his little life on the run only temporary? Was the Soldier just sleeping, ready to be woken up at any second to be at the mercy of a power hungry fool in a suit and tie? Again?

 

And now look at him—left with the fallout of someone else’s sick game. He gingerly gets out of bed and pads over to the large window. His own reflection is visible against the dense trees that line the property, and Bucky can see quite clearly that there’s hardly a scrap of skin left that isn’t mottled with some kind of bruising. Some of them are older—pale yellows and greens instead of harsh reds—no doubt from the blows he sustained in Romania, and Berlin.

 

The bruising that sits along his collarbone and wraps around his ribs and back is livid—so deep a purple that in some places it looks almost black. He reaches out, and tenderly touches the marks that he can see peek out from the edges of his t-shirt and the skin feels warm….Two more days, he thinks, maybe three, and there’ll be no trace of broken capillaries underneath the surface of his skin.

 

The claw marks on his forearm from his first run-in with the Black Panther weren’t particularly deep by any means, but they did break the skin through his leather jacket and red henley. The marks that have been left behind from the healing process are a shiny kind of pink. Fresh new skin that practically glows in the sunlight.

 

His attention shifts to admire the view when he sees the faint reflection of a newcomer in the doorway and he turns around to see the would-be-King of Wakanda standing there with his hands clasped around his back.

 

“Your majesty,” Bucky greets, a little unsure of himself, seeing as how their every encounter so far has been a violent one—their brief interaction on the quinjet notwithstanding.

 

“Good afternoon Sergeant Barnes,” T’Challa greets him in kind, before seeing the light from outside reflect the marks on Bucky’s arm and he frowns.

 

“I did that,” he says simply, no doubt keenly aware of the damage his own suit can inflict on a person. “Please accept my apologies. I should not have attacked you as I did.”

 

“You’ve more than made up for that,” Bucky insists, referring to their current Asylum in Wakanda, even if it is so very hush-hush.

 

“My people believe I am still abroad.” T’Challa says, by way of an explanation. “I am due to “return” in two days as the heir to the throne. Only my sister and a few trusted staff will know the truth.”

 

“Your sister?”

 

“You met her when you first woke up.” T’Challa says with a smile, and at Bucky’s frown, T’Challa mimes the presence of two buns on either side of his head. “Her hair was like this.” He explains, and it doesn’t take long for recognition to set in.

 

“She’s a doctor?”

 

“Of many things. Most recently in Comparative Literature. Though I suspect that was more to prove a point to our mother.”

 

“Well she seems nice.”

 

“She is indeed, but if you were to tell I had said as much, I would deny it.”

 

Bucky lets out a bark of a laugh at that. “I sure understand that feeling,” he says. “I’ve got—”

 

And his mood sobers instantly. What has he got?

 

“I _had,_ ” he corrects, “three sisters. All younger than me. All wonderful and ridiculous in their own little ways.”

 

“What were their names?” T’Challa asks, and for a stupid moment Bucky wonders if this is a test he's expected to fail, but then he realises that he and T’Challa have never really spoken and this is perhaps as close to an organic conversation as the King can manage.

 

“Rebecca, Georgie and Anne. They’re all gone now.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” T’Challa says sincerely.

 

“And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your father too.”

 

T’Challa nods, accepting Bucky’s kind gesture, before bidding him farewell. At the door, just as Bucky has edged back over to his bed once more, T’Challa speaks up.

 

“In case you were wondering, the Captain and the Falcon are overseeing Shuri’s work at her request. She accosted them in the hallway and when it became clear they would not be done soon, she asked that I deliver the message to you personally.”

 

“See?” Bucky says with a little smirk, recalling his own earlier words, stifling a yawn as he lies back down, “ _nice._ ”

 

T’Challa chuckles as he leaves the room, and Bucky thinks the low rumbling sound must have helped him fall asleep much faster. He lets his mind drift to that in-between place before the nightmares have a chance to kick in. Where he can pretend that the worst hasn't happened yet. He can replace the soft murmurings of bird song in the dense forest outside with the repetitive sounds of he and Steve’s busy tenement building in Brooklyn heights at first light. The windows are open and their neighbours are loud and the nearby businesses are even louder.

 

“Time to get up!” Steve would say, ever the early riser, and Bucky would almost always groan and ask for _five more minutes_ that would all too quickly turn to twenty.

 

Here, he can pretend the Second World War hasn't happened yet and that his body is aching not because of some ferocious battle for his _life_ , but because some asshole pushed him hard and he fell back against a dumpster, losing his footing and falling, falling, falling—

 

He starts to dream and his dreams give way to nightmares as they almost always do, and the cycle begins again, until he wakes up at the sound of bones snapping and he vomits over the side of the bed.

  


 


	3. Chapter 3

*

  
  


“Is this seat taken?” Bucky asks, with more than a modicum of his old charming self as he steps up to where Wanda is currently sat in the garden.  He had spotted her from his window, and after his latest nightmare, he hadn’t wanted to be alone. With no idea of when Steve might be allowed to leave Shuri’s lab, Bucky had decided to settle in for the long haul beside Wanda instead.

 

She bookmarks the page of her book with a twig from off of the ground, and moves over so that the space beside her on the bench is free for him to occupy. She brushes a stray strand of hair out of her face, and tucks it behind her ear. They sit together in silence, but Wanda quite pointedly does not return to her reading, though Bucky doesn’t call her on it. Instead he takes a slow breath, and stares off into the distance of the gardens. The many birds singing seem to converge until each song is barely distinguishable from the other, and the din, though somewhat loud, is actually quite peaceful. It lets his mind grow quiet as he listens, and he understands quite clearly why this would be a good spot for Wanda to spend her time. There are olive trees at the very edge of the palace gardens, where the line between _home_ and _forest_ are blurred. The fruits on the branches of the trees hang low, in various shades of purple and green.

 

It’s so beautiful that Bucky almost has to look away. The sun feels warm on his skin, and it’s…nice. But Bucky doesn’t relax, not really, he’s not sure he even can anymore, but this feeling is close, he knows that much.

 

“I’m sorry,” Wanda blurts out then, unexpectedly, having clearly allowed for the silence to stretch for as long as she could stand, and she keeps going before Bucky can even consider to question her apology. “I wasn’t trying to…” and she waves her fingers around by means of an explanation before continuing, “... _pry,_ before, when you woke up, but I could feel your fear, and I only wanted to help.”

 

Bucky thinks about what Steve said about his good dreams— _you have Wanda to thank for that_ —and he thinks about standing beside the sea, with Steve at his back, his arms wrapped around Bucky’s waist, and his head resting on his shoulder. Their toes curled in the wet sand, and both of them sinking as they’re buried by the tide.

 

“It’s okay,” he assures her truthfully. “It was nice not to have nightmares. For once.” He considers asking for good dreams again, but he has a far more important request to ask of her, so he doesn’t. “Thank you for that, by the way. The dreams I mean,” he continues, and he can see that the tips of Wanda’s ears have turned red. Funny how seeing Steve with his shirt off on the sand can do that to a person.

 

He looks away politely, staring off into the far distance, where beyond the borders of the palace, and down over the valley where they sit at its peak, he can see a herd of ostriches conspiring with one another, as the horizon beyond them ripples in the heat.

 

“Steve says you’re a telepath? Is that right?”

 

“Of sorts.” She says, a little warily. “It’s not an exact science.”

 

“No. We special-folk never are.”

 

“Did Steve ever tell you how I can do what I do?” She asks, with something akin to revulsion in her tone. “We were volunteers, my brother and I,” Wanda says, almost as though she wants to contradict Bucky’s use of _special_. “We felt powerless, and we wanted revenge, so we gave ourselves to anyone who would help us.”

 

“Was it Hydra?” Bucky asks, and Wanda nods at once.

 

“Strucker,” she specifies, “his name was Strucker.”

 

And Bucky’s actually proud of how well he hides his flinch. Strucker was a sadist. He remembers that vividly.

 

“But he’s dead,” Wanda goes on to say. “And so is my dear brother, and my mother and my father.” And then, with what Bucky presumes is bolstered resolve, she says, “but you can’t save everyone, and if you can’t find a way to live with that, then maybe next time nobody gets saved. Steve told me that.” She looks down at her chipped nails with her shoulders hunched over as if they were being weighed down by the very memory of her grief, and Bucky feels a fresh wave of deja vu wash over him.

 

He can see the strands of a memory forming from out of the cobwebs of his mind. He’s leaning over someone’s bedroll, consoling them with the very same words— _damnit Rogers, this isn’t on you, okay?_

 

“You know, I think Steve might’a got that from me.” He tells her, if his own memories are to be believed. They’d met a young soldier in France who’d spent his whole morning gushing about how Captain America and his Commandos had inspired him to join the war effort, and then that night following a raid, he’d caught a bullet in the neck, and the kid’s precious commandos had been forced to pocket his dog tags for notification of his death. His date of birth was stamped on the bloody metal as February 4th 1919 but Bucky’d be damned if the kid was even a day over sixteen.

 

“Well then, thank you for telling _him._ ” Wanda says thoughtfully. “Those words—they helped. A lot.”

 

“Good. I’m glad.”

 

Beside them, a black bird with an elongated feathered tail swoops down from its perch above their heads to to hover just above the tips of the purple flowers that surround the garden’s edge, and its tweets become a part of the chorus of birdsong that surround them, no more distinct than the rest.

 

Bucky uses the sounds to try and keep his heart rate steady but his nerves are getting the better of him, and his right hand twitches a little where it rests on his knee.

 

“What is it?” Wanda asks, because if she couldn’t already feel Bucky’s anxiety, she can almost certainly _see_ it now.

 

“Man, my poker-face has gone to shit.” He says, as he rubs the back of his neck, and takes the plunge. “I know I have no right to ask…. _anything_ of you,” he says slowly, “but, do you think with your abilities, you could—I mean, would you,” he stops to catalogue exactly what it is he wants to say, and settles on this; “There are things in my head that need to come out. Triggers. And I can’t control what I do when they’re used, and that’s...terrifying.” He says all at once in the space of one breath.  “But you don't have to if you don’t want to,” Bucky adds hurriedly, because he can sense that she's wary, like too many people have told her she's a danger to society and now she's actually starting to believe them. He gets that. He does. “God knows I wouldn’t want to take a trip into my psyche if I had the choic—”

 

“Okay.” She says, as she unfurls her crossed legs, and turns to face Bucky on the bench with her hands outstretched towards him.

 

“Wait, _now_?” He says, having clearly not expected as much, and Wanda frowns.

 

“Unless you want to do it another time?” She asks, but suddenly the thought of waiting any longer sounds like the worst possible outcome.  He trusts her, she’s saved his life more than once, and he's tired of not knowing if he's gonna self destruct at any moment.

 

So of course that's when everything goes to shit.

  


*

  


In the dream, if that’s even what you’d call it, they’re in a bank vault in Washington DC. He can see himself restrained in a chair, with an IV pumping god knows what into his bloodstream. There’s a man at his right and another behind him, and three guards flank the door with guns, with five more standing beyond the iron gate, and another two in the corner. Their fingers are on the triggers, poised to shoot to kill.

 

“Where are we?” Wanda asks.

 

“Nowhere good,” Bucky whispers.

 

He blinks, and all of a sudden he’s not watching this happen to him anymore, but instead he’s the one in the chair, and he won’t let this happen again. He reacts like a wild thing—and he attacks without mercy. He tears them all to shreds, uses their own bullets against them, until he’s surrounded by bodies and Wanda is watching him in silence.

 

“That’s not how it happened is it?” Wanda asks almost rhetorically, as they walk out, and Bucky fights the urge to whisper _I wish_ under his breath.

 

He blinks and he’s back in the chair screaming. He blinks and they’re standing in the snow. He blinks, and they’re on a street corner in Brooklyn, near Green-wood cemetery. His grandfather is buried there. Steve and his mother even came to the service. They made sandwiches for the wake. It was nice.

 

“What’s happening?” He asks, but Wanda shakes her head.

 

“I don’t know. I’m trying to....find the triggers in your head but something keeps pulling us…”

 

 _Or someone_ , Bucky thinks darkly as they walk down the deserted avenue. There are no cars on the road, no people by their stoops, and it’s quiet except for the sound of someone whispering fervently in their ears. Bucky can’t make out the words, but it’s definitely not him and it’s sure as hell not Wanda, and whenever the sound comes close, Bucky whirls around only to find nothing there.

 

They turn a corner, and Bucky knows that he should be staring at an industrial lot, but instead they’re by the beach. It doesn’t make any damn sense for them to be on the far side of Atlantic Avenue, but they most certainly are. Only it’s not like he remembers. The end of the boardwalk’s all torn to shreds, and there’s great big sand dunes towering into the sky, where only a flat beach should sit.

 

Here, deep in the recesses of Bucky’s mind, where the trigger words are embedded inside of his own trauma, the skies are darker, made turbulent with the threat of rain, or snow, or something much worse. There’s a crack from above as a lightning tears through the sky.

 

“Something’s wrong,” Wanda says, tilting her head, and staring off into the distance. “We’ve gone too far.”

 

Her hand is held aloft, but the red wisps of energy stretching out from her grasp are pulsing and shorting out all at once. She shivers, and Bucky’s own hand twitches for a gun he doesn’t have as he turns around to see a figure in black, stalking towards them. And he knows that walk, that stride. They’re being hunted.

 

“Run,” he says, as he grabs a hold of Wanda’s hand and takes off as fast as he can in the opposite direction from where they came from. They have no choice but to scale the huge sand-dunes, but before they’re even halfway, they start to sink and slide on the uneven terrain.

 

Their shadow is gaining on them, and some immeasurable terror is gnashing at their ankles, biting at their heels as they scramble up the ridge. The temperature drops dramatically, and the higher they climb, the colder it becomes, until the sand is frozen solid, and covered in snow. Their breaths fog listlessly in the air around them, but they can’t afford to stop, not with the enemy so close behind.

 

Wanda tries, but she can’t keep up the pace. Her heart is beating fast at her breast and her lungs ache to breathe in the too-cold air. She slips in the snow, and lands hard on the cold wet ground. She tries to fumble to her feet, but it’s too late, and she turns around to see a metal arm come flying towards her. She puts her hands out to defend herself but her powers are not forthcoming, and she braces herself for a terrible blow, when suddenly Bucky appears from out of nowhere and catches the Winter Soldier’s metal fist in his right palm. His entire arm seems as though to reverberate from the blow, but he grits his teeth, and stands his ground.

 

“Go, now!” He shouts over to her, not daring to take his eyes off of the Soldier and his muzzled face. His eyes are dark, but if he squints, even he can see the horror buried deep inside. How often he himself forgets that the Soldier’s first victim was James Buchanan Barnes.

 

Wanda takes one look between Bucky and his doppleganger, before taking off at a run back down the sand-banks and out of harm's way. The Soldier gains the upper hand, landing a punch on the side of Bucky’s head that makes him stumble, and before he can fall, there’s a metal hand squeezing his throat, and pinning him to the ground. But so long as the Soldier’s distracted then Wanda is safe, and that’s all that matters.

 

He wants to claw his way back to Steve but the Soldier’s hold on him is too strong. He lets go of his neck and grabs a hold of his hair instead—dragging him backwards despite all of Bucky’s struggles. He can smell brake fluid, mixed with gunpowder, and smoke from god knows where starts to fill his nostrils. The air’s getting darker, claustrophobic, and suddenly there are walls that weren’t there before—dirty and green—and there’s a blonde man leaning over him now, reaching out, and saying, “You know James, you’re like a son to me.”

 

He screams.

  


*****

  


“You gonna take Shuri up on her offer to get you a new set of wings?”

 

“Are you kidding me? Those specs were in _sane_ , I’d be a idiot not to!” Sam laughs as he and Steve make their way up the path that leads back to the private quarters they’ve been assigned to in the palace. They hear a commotion up ahead and take a second to look at one another in confusion before a scream breaks through the air and they take off at a run. Steve gets there first, and he has no idea what the hell’s going on, but he knows it isn’t good.

 

Bucky is writhing on the ground, his body convulsing while his eyes are open and unseeing—filled with an eerie red light that blocks out even the whites of his eyes. Wanda’s beside him on her knees, gritting her teeth and pulling at her own hair, while tendrils of the same light wind up and around her fingertips, like strands of barbed wire cruelly tearing at her skin.

 

Steve doesn’t think—he just grabs her by the arms, and calls out her name to try and jolt her back to the present—“Wanda, you need to stop!”—but now the crimson wisps are reaching out for him too—thin vines coil around his wrists like shackles without form—edging closer to his head like snakes going in for the—

 

 _Soldat?_ Steve hears someone ask, and it’s Bucky’s voice that responds in kind. They’re in a dark room, and Steve can see him curled up on the ground, unmoving save for the occasional ragged breath wracking his frame. His long brown hair is covering his face, and his arms are cuffed behind him. The guard that leaves his cell is smirking as he passes another that’s on his way in—

 

The image is violently ripped away from him as Steve’s lifted up into the air and slammed back down onto the ground. Steve blinks at the new—or rather _existing_ —surroundings of the palace gardens, and sees Bucky towering over him, spitting with rage, straddling his body on the ground, with his one hand wrapped around Steve’s neck. The red light in his eyes is gone, but so is any trace of familiarity. _No, not again._

 

Steve can see Sam in the corner of his eye, protecting Wanda—who, while still kneeling prone on the ground, is staring at Bucky with a kind of guilty horror that Steve knows all too well, and trying desperately to reach out to him. Sam looks ready to jump into the fray too, but Steve flicks his wrist, and makes a motion with his hand as if to say _no, stay back_. He can already feel Bucky’s grip on his trachea loosening.

 

“Buck,” Steve manages to rasp, “it’s me…it’s _Steve_.”

 

And Bucky’s frowning now, almost as though he’s in pain—blinking furiously while his chest heaves for air, frustrated and confused, and so very scared.

 

“Come back.”

 

And suddenly the pressure around Steve’s throat is gone and he lets out a grateful wheeze as he’s released—coughing as he curls onto his side. Bucky, meanwhile, is scrambling backwards as fast as his abused body will allow, tripping over his own stumbling feet in his shell shocked haste—only stopping when his back hits the edge of the nearby fountain _hard_ , and he slumps down to the ground in defeat.  His face is ashen and he’s swallowing repeatedly, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down at a furious pace like he’s trying desperately to stop himself from being sick.

 

“Steve—” He says, choking back a sob, his body shuddering as though he’s shedding the persona of the Soldier like a second skin—and Bucky Barnes is the one struggling to get to the surface, to deal with the fallout.  His whole body is curling in on itself and Steve can practically feel Bucky start to withdraw.

 

Crawling closer, Steve is careful to telegraph his movements as much as possible with his hands outstretched, palms up, as he nears him. Bucky doesn’t flinch, or move away, and when Steve’s right by his side he slumps awkwardly into Steve’s chest. Bucky’s looking down at his right hand in disgust, and Steve can see blood caked with dirt and gravel from where Bucky has scraped his palm raw in his haste to get away.

 

“I can’t stay here,” Bucky says, and the hoarse sound of his voice almost makes Steve flinch. “It’s not safe.”

 

Behind them Wanda goes stiff at the words, but Steve knows they aren’t meant for her.

 

“Forgive me,” says a voice, and both Bucky and Steve look up to see T’Challa standing there, apologising as though they weren’t all current recipients of his gracious hospitality. He looks troubled, but then Steve supposes—with Bucky still shaking in his arms, and Sam and Wanda huddled together—they all do. “But perhaps, there is another way.”

  


*****

  


The cryogenic stasis pod that’s been brought up from Shuri’s lab and over to the medical wing of the palace is the most sophisticated piece of technology that Steve has ever seen, but it may as well have been a hunk of rusted metal for all the dread that it fills him with.

 

“By using the stasis Chamber, we would be giving ourselves the time to come up with a more permanent solution,” Shuri tells them, and Steve desperately wants to interrupt. Going under doesn’t give anyone _time_ , it takes it. It takes it all. It hoards away years of a person’s life, and keeps them on the shelf like a discarded toy. Like a weapon.

 

Except that’s not wholly true either but Steve’s angry and upset, and he hates the far-off look in Bucky’s eyes that means he’s more than considering this as an option, so while Wakanda’s most advanced scientist explains the benefits of the procedure to Bucky, Sam and Wanda, Steve slips away.

 

Outside, he leans up against a large stone war, and grabs a hold of the dried plant vines that snake up alongside it. His chest feels tight and he’s practically gulping for air as he tries to quell the panic rising up inside of him.

 

He’s never felt so helpless in his whole life. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn’t know how to fix any of this, and he wishes he could let out the awful, guttural scream that’s choking him in the back of his throat. He runs his hands through his hair and pulls, before wiping his face and taking a series of deep breaths.

 

“...you don’t need to ask, man, but you know I’ll keep his ass out of trouble.” Steve hears Sam say all of a sudden as he and Bucky wander outside, seemingly unaware of Steve’s presence as he sits behind a pillar.

 

“Am I doing the right thing?” Bucky asks, and Sam’s response is a long drawn out sigh.

 

“It’s your decision. No one can tell you if it’s the right thing to do, except you.”

“I thought you’d say something like that,” Bucky mutters, and Steve sees as Sam clasps his hand on his right shoulder, and pointedly makes eye contact to deliver his next line.

 

“You’re not what they made you to be, Barnes, remember that. So take your time, and make sure this is really what you want, okay?” Sam says, and at Bucky’s nod, he says, “alright, good,” and leaves him alone to his thoughts as he heads back inside.

 

From his vantage point, Steve watches as Bucky takes a seat on the palace steps, and tilts his head to the sky. His eyes are closed, and Steve doesn’t say a word, but without giving any indication he knows he’s not alone, he speaks up.

 

“I can’t be their puppet Steve, not ever again.”

 

Of course he knew Steve was there the whole time; world’s best hide and seek champion...

 

“And going back on ice is the only solution?” Steve asks, as he steps forward and takes a seat beside him.

 

“From what I can see, yeah.” Bucky sighs, as he draws his knees up closer to his chest.

 

There’s a slight breeze that shakes the leaves of the trees as they sway to the left, then to the right, and back again. It’s strangely beautiful, and the smell of ozone does a lot to ease the tension headache he can feel coming on. He thinks it might rain soon, and wouldn’t that be a sight to see.

 

When he looks over at Bucky he sees that Bucky’s already looking at _him_ and he lets out a breath like he’s preparing for something, and Steve doesn’t like it, not at all, not one bit.

 

“You’ve already decided, haven’t you?” He says and Bucky’s silence speaks volumes. Steve hates it, and he hates that he can selfishly feel the anger churning in his stomach because once again he’s being left behind. _What am I gonna do? Collect scrap metal in my little red-wagon?_

 

“I thought Wanda could help, but you saw what a shitshow that turned out to be, and that’s on me. I can’t let anyone else get hurt. I can’t let _you_ get hurt.” He says, before his eyes find the red hand shaped mark on Steve’s throat. “God, I’m _sorry_ —”

 

“ _No_ , don’t apologise. None of this is your goddamn fault. I just can’t believe this is our only option.”

 

“This is my choice.”

 

And Steve visibly shudders at that.

 

 _Stop blaming yourself_ —Peggy had said to Steve in the middle of a bombed-out pub as he nursed his third bottle’s worth of alcohol, that didn’t do a damn thing to help his tortured soul— _allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it._

 

Bucky can’t know the enormity of those words, he can’t, he can’t know what Peggy said to him back then, and he can’t know that Steve used the same tactic back at her when he was flying a suicide mission into the arctic circle and she was begging him not to— _Please don’t do this, we still have time_ —Bucky can’t know…and yet somehow he must do—because it’s all he needs to say to get Steve to back down almost instantly. It’s his choice, and Steve can’t take that away from him. He won’t.

 

“I said the same thing to Peggy, once.” And Bucky doesn’t say if he already knew that or not.

 

“I sent flowers to her funeral,” he says however, as though they were both sat in confessional. “I went to visit her before leaving DC but she was having a bad day, and I think I made it worse.”

 

“You didn’t.” Steve says with authority as his thoughts stray to his own visits to Peggy’s bed-side where some days were worse than others. His chest constricts and it occurs to him that her funeral was less than a week ago, and all of the events of the last few days catch up to him all at once and his heart aches fiercely in his chest.

 

His eyes close and he feels Bucky's thumb gently rub away the tears that have left a trail down his cheek.

 

 _I can’t do this, I can’t lose you,_ Steve thinks, but pointedly does not say out loud. Denying Bucky anything, even before the War would have been tough but knowing what he does now? Well. What’s the use? He won’t burden Bucky with his own feelings, he can’t.

 

So instead they sit together in silence, each of them scooching closer to one another, as they watch the sun set in an amazing blaze of deep reds and oranges and yellows that set the sky on fire.

 

“It’s beautiful,” Bucky says, and Steve turns to look at him instead.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees, as he tries desperately to commit each one of Bucky’s features to memory. The curve of his jaw, the crinkle in the corner of his eyes, the dimple on his chin, hidden by a growing beard. “Beautiful,” he whispers.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

*****

  
  


That night he dreams about Iron Man again. He’s there, towering over Steve’s body, only this time, Steve’s still alive, and he’s writhing on the ground, having just been shot in the stomach, and Bucky’s standing over him with the smoking gun. 

 

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, you’ve known me your whole life,” Steve splutters, pressing his hands against the pulsing wound in a vain attempt to stem the blood flow. “You’re my friend,” he insists, just as Tony steps forward.

 

“So was I.” He says, as he lets off a repulsor blast that brings the whole building down on top of them all.

 

Bucky wakes up and reaches over to lay his hand on top of Steve’s abdomen. There’s no wound, there’s not even a scar from the actual bullet that the Winter Soldier fired at him on the helicarrier in Washington. No proof, save for the painful memory that haunts Bucky’s subconscious mind about as much as his conscious one. He’s so focused on staring at Steve’s pristine skin, that he doesn’t notice that Steve’s awake and watching him—not until he rests his own hand on top of Bucky’s. 

 

“Another nightmare?”

 

“They were getting better. Before.” Bucky says. Before Vienna happened. Before the SWAT teams came at him with guns blazing. Before Zemo uttered those damned words, and he lost his goddamn mind once more. 

 

"I had a plan you know, in Bucharest," Bucky tells him. “I knew you would find me eventually, so I told myself I’d lie through my teeth  and tell you I didn't remember you. And I would say it over and over again until you stopped looking for me. And eventually you'd move on but—”

 

_ Why did you pull me from the river?  _

_ I don’t know _

_ You’re lying. _

 

“—I guess i didn't account for you being you."

 

Bucky’s  hand slips down, resting on Steve’s neck, pulling him in closer for this kiss. There’s a desperation there, and they’re both breathing heavily into the exchange, Steve lets out a low moan that betrays his longing— _ their _ longing, for each other, for this moment, and for every moment thereafter that they’re still together.

 

They both pull apart, but with closed eyes they rest their foreheads against one another and just  _ breath _ . 

  
  


*

  
  


Steve feels like he’s sixteen again. Nervous, and unsure, and waiting for Bucky to take the lead, but too impatient to wait much longer. Their cheeks are flushed pink and he can see that Bucky’s eyes are wet and shining.

 

“I’m not…” Bucky starts to say, but stops mid-way, biting his already split lip. “I’m not saying goodbye, that’s not what this is.” He assures Steve as he lets his hips shift closer to Steve’s—they’re practically moving in sync, curling around one another like two parts made whole as both of their bodies run hot from something other than the serum. 

 

Steve’s thighs quiver, and for a moment he’s coiled up tighter than a spring, before a perfect release eases every semblance of tension out of his frame. 

 

He lets out a strangled cry, forcibly muffling the sound into the crook of Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky shudders against him in kind, his body slack and pressing down against Steve’s like the effort of staying upright is more than his muscles can handle in the aftermath of his orgasm. 

 

Steve whispers Bucky’s name like a prayer, and he’s biting his lip to stop the obscenities from pouring out of him. He lets his fingers trail along the dark hair that leads south from hiss navel, and he casts his gaze upwards just in time to see Bucky’s eyes close as he lets out a contented sigh—his breath speeding up in tandem with Steve’s ministrations as his palm goes ever lower. 

 

That look—that  _ bliss _ —Steve wishes it weren’t so foreign on his lover’s face. He wishes that moments like this weren’t so few and far between. That they weren’t  _ numbered _ . 

 

Because that’s what this is. 

 

It’s their last night together. 

 

“Hey, you okay?” Bucky asks softly, and Steve blinks, realising only then that he’d stopped, stock-still—his hand hovering just above Bucky’s pelvis—as the realisation of what’s to come in the morning hit him like a ton of bricks. 

 

Bucky must know, he must see something in Steve’s eyes, because he doesn’t wait for a response, before cupping the side of Steve’s face with his right hand, and gently pulling him down to lay his head on his chest. He cards his fingers through his hair in silence, until the bough breaks, and Steve starts to shake in Bucky’s arms as reality sets in. 

 

“Steve, look at me.”

 

It takes a moment, that seems all at once too long, and not long enough, until Steve shifts a little, just enough to look up at Bucky. 

 

“You know I’m not leaving you, right? You know that’s not what this is?”

 

Steve doesn’t trust his voice not to break, and a small, selfish part of him doesn’t agree, so he stays silent, choking on his sobs in an effort to stop them altogether.  _ Push it down, _ he thinks desperately as he bites down on his bottom lip,  _ push it deep deep down. Lock the door. Throw away the key. Pull yourself together. _

 

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Bucky says—his gentle tone a stark contrast to Steve’s own inner-thoughts. “I got you, Steve, I got you.”

  
  
  


*****

  
  
  


The sun has only just started to rise outside of the window in their quarters, and Steve is pretending to be asleep. Bucky’s fingers are still carding their way through his hair, while Steve is huddled up against Bucky’s right side, lying beside him and pressing his face into his chest.

 

“How did I ever forget you?” Bucky asks quietly, more to himself than anyone else, and Steve keeps his eyes closed and moves with every breath Bucky takes. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. It’s hypnotic, and distracting, and he lets the silence stretch on for what seems like an age, because this intimacy, this  _ togetherness _ is theirs, and he wants to keep it for as long as possible because today’s the day Bucky goes back under. Steve’s going to lose him today. 

 

“Steve,” Bucky calls. “I know you’re awake.”

 

Steve doesn’t reply.

 

“Steve.”

 

Steve doesn’t look up. 

 

Instead, he burrows further into the soft material of Bucky’s shirt like he’s burying his head in the sand. 

 

“ _ Steve. _ ” Bucky insists.

 

“No.” Steve finally responds, his voice barely above a whisper. He’s draped over Bucky now, his arm lying gently on Bucky’s chest, mindful of the healing injuries that lie just beneath the surface. 

 

“No, no, no.”

 

He knows he sounds like a petulant child but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want the illusion to shatter. He doesn’t want the morning to make way for afternoon. He doesn’t want the moment to end.

 

“Let’s stay in bed today.” Steve says as though their only hurdle was the day itself.

 

“Okay,” Bucky replies, willing to pretend for a little while. “But what’ll we do for food?”

 

“We’ll order in.”

 

“Oh yeah? And what about taking a leak?”

 

“Bathroom breaks. Very  _ brief _ , bathroom breaks.”

 

“Wow pal, sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

 

“I think we both know that’s not true.” Steve says, and even though his playful tone hasn’t changed, there’s an unmistakable sombre undertone to his words that makes it pointless to continue with the game. Bucky doesn’t have the answers that Steve’s looking for, and that’s part of the problem. Bucky can’t fix this, so if going under for the time being means that the world’s a little safer—that  _ Steve’ _ s a little safer? Then so be it.

 

“You should talk to Stark.” Bucky says, somewhat bluntly, and Steve just stares back at that—he doesn’t disagree, not verbally at least, but there’s a questioning look in his eyes.

 

“What if it was the other way around and someone had killed  _ your _ parents?” Bucky continues and still Steve says nothing. “What if someone had killed  _ me _ ?”

 

Steve closes his eyes and swallows down the bitter taste in his mouth. What was it he’d said to Peggy again? After countless attempts at getting drunk had failed miserably in the wake of Bucky’s fall from the train.  _ I’m not gonna stop until all of Hydra are dead or captured. _

 

_ You won’t be alone _ , had been her response back then. Her promise, while they had sat together surrounded by empty tables and overturned chairs—broken shards of glass crunching beneath the legs of their rickety stools as they leaned in closer for comfort. Peggy had squeezed Steve’s hand.

 

His heart aches at the memory. His grief is seemingly endless, these days. If it had a face, he would greet it as one does an old friend,  _ hey there, barely noticed you were gone _ , he might say to the dark cloud hanging overhead. To the weight on his shoulders, to the invisible albatross hanging around his neck like a noose.

 

“I don’t want you to be alone.” Bucky says quietly, unknowingly echoing Peggy’s words from so long ago. “It’s no good for you.”

 

_ So stay here with me.  _ Steve wants to say, wants to scream, but he bites his tongue. He won’t deny Bucky this request. He can’t, not when it’s his decision. His body, his mind. His life. _ Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.  _ Do as Peggy says.

 

“T’Challa doesn’t think it’ll take long.” Steve says instead, and Bucky gives him that timid smile again, like he’s humouring Steve and it’s as infuriating as it is depressing. “Hey, I’m not waiting around another seventy years, Buck.”

 

“Reckon we’ll finally have flying cars by then?”

 

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out together.”

 

Bucky nods, opens up his mouth to speak, but decides against it. He falters again, before he shakes his head. “This isn’t me giving up, Steve,” —and when Steve looks away, Bucky insists; “ _ It’s not _ . I—I know what that’s like, and this isn’t it.”

 

Steve wants to insist over and over again that it’s not Bucky’s fault until he’s blue in the face, but it’s an argument they’re both tired of having, and there’s not enough hours left in the day to make himself heard. 

 

It’s almost time.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


It’s gone lunchtime by the time Bucky’s being shown the cryogenic tube, when he sees Steve sidle in quietly, watching as Bucky’s shown to a seat, while one of his regular nurses finishes inserting an IV. Beside the chamber, Shuri is busy adjusting the settings on her datapad to match those of the monitors. Her voice is light as she calls over various things to Bucky, unaware of the additional presence in her lab.

 

“...what about your Captain? He’s certainly pretty. And tall. You could climb him like a tree.” She says, and Bucky hangs his head in clear embarrassment—of all the times for Steve to walk in, smack in the middle of Shuri needling information out of him about his love-life was less than ideal.

 

“He’s not  _ my _ Captain,” he splutters, but it sounds like a lie even to his own ears, and the amused look Steve’s shoots in his direction tells him he’s not convincing anyone. 

 

“How blind do you think I am?” Shuri asks, somewhat ironically as she looks up and notices Steve shuffling his feet in the corner for the first time. She coughs to hide her own surprised laugh, and gives him a nod in greeting as she finishes her work.

 

“I’ll give you two a moment, and then we can get started.” She says to Bucky, before giving them the room.

 

“What was that about?”

 

“Nothing, she was just messing with me.”

 

“You know who she reminds me of?”

 

“Becs?” 

 

“Yeah.” Steve says with a genuine smile at the shared memory of the oldest of Bucky’s little sisters. “You sure about this?” Steve asks again, and it takes all of Bucky’s resolve not to crumble.

 

“I can't trust my own mind,” he confesses and Steve's good at hiding his flinches but Bucky's better at spotting them. "Steve, it’s not  _ that _ , it’s not you, but...until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under’s the best thing.”

 

The state of some of his memories are questionable at best, but everything that day on the helicarrier is oh so vivid. He can remember the panic and fury of Zemo triggering him—fighting Steve, fighting Sam, fighting Tony, fighting Natasha— _ don’t you at least recognise me _ ? Boy do I.

 

“For everybody.” Bucky adds, trying to get Steve to look him in the eye, and shooting him a weak smile when he finally does. 

 

Shuri returns, and another doctor overseeing the procedure takes his vitals, and goes over the process again for the hundredth time—Bucky nodding all the while, still tickled by the novelty that they’re all so worried about  _ his  _ wellbeing. Steve stays quiet throughout and if that’s not a cause for concern then he doesn’t know what is.

 

He doesn’t say goodbye, he can’t, he won’t, it’s too final—it’s too much like dropping the shield, and he’s not ready for that, and by the looks of him, neither is Steve. They had their moment last night, and this morning—clinging together in the privacy afforded to them by the King—so for this public facade, they both remain stoic instead. 

 

Bucky steps into the chamber, and moments later a soft strap is fastened across his upper arm and chest, with another over his abdomen and then a third across his calves, before the glass case is sealed around him and it takes all of his willpower not to give in to the anxiety that’s screaming in his mind.

 

But where Hydra was dark and cold and ancient and broken, everything here is clean and gentle and light. He'd even go as far as to say serene. The clothes he's wearing are soft and the doctors and nurses in T'Challa's employ treat him with a kind of dignity he’d long forgotten about. Shuri stands at the side of the monitors, and when she has Bucky’s full attention she holds out her hand, fingers splayed, before she starts counting down from five. 

 

Beside her, Steve's there standing guard.  _ I'll take the first watch _ he’d said that first night in Azzano when Bucky's eyes were wide and unblinking as if he still didn't quite believe he’d been rescued at all. And here he  was doing it all over again.

 

Shuri’s index finger curls down and her hand is now a fist held aloft. There’s a soft click, and a whoosh of freezing air floods into the chamber. 

 

Bucky closes his eyes, lets out a sigh and drifts off to a cold sleep.

  
  
  


*

  
  
  


Steve doesn’t know how long he stays there, standing sentry, but he can’t look away from Bucky’s body— his face slack behind the glass, his eyes closed. He thinks of Bucky’s near drowning in the Spree river—unconscious behind the splintered windshield of the downed helicopter. 

 

Steve wishes he could punch through the glass to get to Bucky like he did then. He wants to drag Bucky out of the chamber, and bring him back to shore. He wants to say _ I’m sorry, but I’m not strong enough _ , and risk the resentment if only to stave off the crushing loneliness that’s already like a vice around his chest but he’ll be fucked if that’s even an option anymore.

 

“Hey man,” Sam greets, squeezing Steve’s shoulder as he joins him. “You okay?”

 

Steve doesn’t answer, not really, he gives Sam a nod and a half-hearted smile that they both know isn’t worth shit. There’s no point in lying when his almost-grief is coming off him in waves. Wanda follows closely behind, and Steve can’t help but wonder about the slight bruising that’s still around her neck from that damned awful inhibitor collar, and he can’t begin to wonder what kind of damage could have occurred from venturing into someone else’s mind like she did. 

 

“Has anyone taken a look at you?” Steve asks, and Wanda nods, reaching up to pull her hair closer to her face in a vain attempt to hide the marks. 

 

“I’m fine,” she insists only to receive an arched eyebrow in return. “I’m okay,” she amends slightly. 

 

“You know I haven’t really done that since...since you.” Wanda tells him, referring to her ability to access and manipulate a person’s thoughts and memories. Steve realises she’s talking about before—before Sokovia was destroyed, before Ultron was defeated, before her brother died. He sees the guilty look in her eyes, and he tries not to think about Peggy’s youthful face asking him for a dance. 

 

“I didn’t mean to...show him anything the first time,” Wanda continues, her voice barely anything above a whisper. “I could feel his fear, and I was just trying to keep him calm, make him feel safe, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t control... _ me _ . And then later on, the Soldier was so angry, I don’t think I could have ever beat him. We’d have died trying.”

 

“I understand,” Steve says kindly, and his words help lift the burden from off of her shoulders, at least for a little while. Because it’s absolution she’s searching for—she blames herself for not finding a solution to keep Bucky out of the ice, and it’s a testament to how good a person she is that those thoughts are crossing her mind, even if she is dead wrong. 

 

“You know, Clint offered to let me stay with him and his family,” she says “but I’m not much of a farmer.”

 

“Neither is Clint,” Steve says with a little laugh. “Not that I could do any better. I’m a city-boy through and through.” 

 

“True, but at least you’ll look the part,” she says, in an attempt to inject joviality into the conversation as she gestures to the fast-growing scruff on the lower part of Steve’s face. 

 

“I guess I should probably shave,” Steve concedes but Wanda shakes her head in disagreement. 

 

“Captain America doesn’t have a beard,” she says and they both know that’s not who Steve is anymore, after all. He doesn’t reply, and Steve watches a little dumbfounded as she steps up to frozen glass and tentatively reaches out. She twirls her wrist, and there she is again,  _ conducting _ . Crafting something from nothing as if by magic.

 

“What are you doing?” Steve asks quietly, as if afraid to interrupt, but he needn’t have worried.

 

“I wanted to give him good dreams.” She says simply, with a far off look, and a faint red hue to her usually brown eyes.  

 

Her fingers brush past Steve’s sleeve, and squeezes his hand in a comforting gesture as she leaves.  For a second he can taste the salty-sweet air of the sea on his tongue. He can smell stale cigarette smoke mixed with old spice on Bucky’s skin, and he can hear a train rattling by on the overpass. 

 

He lets out a long sigh that seems to stretch for an age—the kind of breath that comes from deep within—and when he opens his eyes, and looks at the frosted pane of the cryo-chamber, he swears he sees Bucky smile.

  
  
  
  


 

 

**Epilogue**

  
  
  


“Steve? You coming?” Sam calls out as he adjusts his vibranium wing-pack, ready to set off in search of the Hydra splinter cell they’ve been tailing for almost a month. “The others said they’d meet us there, but you know Nat gets cranky when we’re late!”

 

Steve doesn’t look up right away, his eyes are still fixated on the phone in his hand and the message that’s sitting there. 

 

“No, I...I got somewhere I need to be.” Steve says, finally looking up as a huge smile graces his features, and Sam feels a modicum of relief to know that his face can still do that. On the screen, he can see the message illuminated in blue.  _ He’s awake _ .

 

Sam responds with his own relieved grin, and clasps Steve’s shoulder with a hard familiar squeeze.

 

“Well then, what are you waiting for?”

  
  


*

  
  


Sound comes first. It’s indistinguishable as his body tries to adapt and compensate but soon the rushing of blood to the head makes way for a soft whirring sound, followed by a whoosh of air. The din is clearer now. There are people talking. Three men and two women. Another machine beeps to a steady pace and Bucky can feel his fingers and toes tingling.

 

There’s a gentleness to this waking that he hasn’t felt before. It’s slow and calm and he’s not being dragged out of the chamber, or shocked and tortured into being their perfect weapon. Their slave. Instead there’s a voice that he recognises before he went under, the woman that had checked his vitals before is giving careful instructions to the soft footed nurse at his side.  _ Shuri, _ that was her name, Shuri and Navid. They’re encouraging him to take it slow, take it easy.

 

“Hey pal.” He hears Steve’s voice join the others and say, “you with me?”

 

And maybe they’re huddled together in the piece of shit tenement building they can barely afford, or they’ve fallen asleep under a tree in Prospect Park in the middle of Summer.  _ Just five more minutes,  _ he always used to say whenever he slept in and Steve had to prod and poke and tickle him out of bed. Maybe Steve’s waking him up from another nightmare before his screams can wake the other commandos, or Steve’s jostling him upright as they hobble out of Siberia, leaning heavily against one another, unable to make it alone. Maybe they’re pressed up close in the privacy of the medical wing of a great palace—guests of a kind King that’s given them sanctuary, and five more minutes can wait, because damn it, he has things to do, and a life to lead and he doesn’t want to waste anymore  _ time _ .

 

“Come on, wake up buddy.” Steve’s voice sounds as light as Bucky feels.  _ Must be good news _ , he thinks faintly.

 

“Rogers, we talked about this—” He hears Shuri admonish Steve, before Bucky hears a clearer question being addressed to him.

 

“Sergeant, can you open your eyes?”

 

His five minutes are up. Showtime.

 

He feels lighter, and when he opens his eyes he can feel a smile tugging at his lips almost unbidden with a kind of ease he hasn’t felt in god knows how long.

 

“Желание,” Navid says at his side, as Bucky had expected he would, as he cycles through the litany of trigger words to ensure that there is no conditioned response. The words make a cold pit in Bucky’s stomach grow and harden, but that’s it. There’s no pain, there’s no pull. Just the memory of fear and loathing and submission. 

 

But now? Only peace, and he lets out a long sigh as he draws the soft blanket around his shoulders.

 

“It worked?” Steve can’t help but ask, and Bucky can’t mistake the sheer amount of joy in his voice.

 

Shuri nods, and turns to her patient. “One more  question. Can you tell me your name?”

 

“Bucky,” he tells her with a level of certainty he’s missed for well over seventy years. “My name is Bucky.”

 

_\- Fin_

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .....I think I may have gotten a little indulgent at the end there with the fluff but I just love happy endings. And YAY I got this posted before Infinity War comes out and makes all of this canon-divergent XD please leave a comment if you liked this :) and feel free to say hello on [tumblr](http://mellaithwen.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to say hello on [tumblr](http://mellaithwen.tumblr.com/)!


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